


adámas

by bladeCleaner



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Implied JadeRose, hints of jaderose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-24
Updated: 2014-03-24
Packaged: 2018-01-16 20:54:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1361461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bladeCleaner/pseuds/bladeCleaner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>diamond (from the ancient Greek αδάμας – adámas "unbreakable")</p>
<p>Jade Harley has never needed to be protected from anyone but herself. This is a story about a childhood split between a gold moon, a wild island and pixelated pictures; this is a story about growing up. One thing should be made clear; this is not a story about honesty, but it is one about friends.</p>
<p>Added bonus: Jade is into sports.</p>
            </blockquote>





	adámas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CredibilityProblem](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CredibilityProblem/gifts).
  * Inspired by [stitching up the circuitboards](https://archiveofourown.org/works/174140) by [dellaluce](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dellaluce/pseuds/dellaluce). 



Your grandfather told you once that diamonds are made under conditions of extreme heat and pressure. You live on an island with a volcano. There are diamonds everywhere, hidden in the molten rock. If you only knew to look.

“But _you_ are the finest of them all, my dear,” he smiles, bouncing you on his knee.

\--

You have three friends. Rose, John, Dave.

Rose-her name’s rooted in Persian, Latin, Greek. In Parthian, _rose_ is read as _wâr_. 

You unfurl a smoke curlicue of a memory-a vision from the clouds of Skaia; her standing like a steel lightning rod-arms taut and wands raised like batons, conducting symphonies of blood and grist. That fits, you think. She wants so badly to be the beautiful, dangerous thing. Sometimes she is! Sometimes she’s as brutally exquisite as a knife.

You sharpen her edges without meaning to, sometimes. Yet…

GG: the big man  
GG: HASS the ball  
GG: also maybe mike krzyzewski should look into the dukes for his new olympic rep because wow jazz is not stepping it up this year!!!  
GG: what about that shameful time in 2004? redeem team my ass!!!  
TG: i love it when you talk sports to me baby  
TG: my comprehension of what you just said could fill libraries  
TG: libraries with hot bookkeepers who talk olympic stats to me all day long like what is even the deal with all this olympic related knowledge  
TG: did those ladies get a degree in library science and sports  
TG: probably  
GG: wow do you know anything about basketball :/  
TG: nope

It’s eventually Rose who snaps you out of your basketball phase with Squiddles. You still keep up with the NBA, but the Squiddles cartoon is too engrossing to not consume you.

Sometimes you two will stay up way past midnight making stupid jokes and weird faces at each other through webcam. You spend too much time talking about made-up Squiddle names. The unexpected elation of her laughter reminds you that she’s as silly as you are.

You can hide so many things in a name like Rose.

John-meaning Yahweh. You think about your brother. The Heir and the first to die. You’ve read the clouds; it won’t take him 3 days to rise again. You think of the way his hands like to fly around cards and  
 _You’re closer to god than you know._

David’s got even more Biblical implications (TG: dude basically danced around in his underwear singing about god  
TG: even christian mes knew how to party hard) 

and-

Jade: Could be either nephrite or jadeite-metamorphic rocks made out of microcrystalline matrices. The former made out of calcium, calcium-magnesium-iron, and an intermediate composition of some form of asbestos(able to withstand abnormal amounts of heat). Nephrite turns greener with more iron content. Jadeite is sodium-aluminum-rich and a pyroxene, mostly found in volcanoes as crystals.

The name pyroxene comes from the Greek words for fire (πυρ) and stranger (ξένος). Pyroxenes were named this way because of their presence in volcanic lavas, where they are sometimes seen as crystals embedded in volcanic glass; it was assumed they were impurities in the glass, hence the name "fire strangers".

\--

_Cucurbita maxima_ : Noun. Latin, possibly related to gourd.

You learn the names of almost every fruit and flower as you wander about your garden atrium. Your granddad bought you lots of seeds when you were young. You’ve always loved the feel of dirt under your fingers; the softness of soil giving way. In fact you used to dig around with Bec all the time! You found bones and little trinkets that you stashed away like treasure. Things like completely fossilized crickets and butterflies.

You consider that perhaps you might be a little morbid. But Dave assures you that collecting dead things like trophies is completely normal, and is at least a little encouraged in modern day society.

You laugh.

\--

After your grandfather died you had the urge to throw all his things out. You dismembered his VALIANT KNIGHTS, desecrated some crypts of his DECREPIT MUMMIES, though you left his DAUGHTERS OF ECLECTICA and BIG GAME TROPHIES alone. You dragged piece after piece of memorabilia outside of your house. You were going to toss it all into the crater lagoon.

Your house runs on volcanic geothermal power. If you could have, you would have torn the ground askew and burnt yourself in the underground magma. You would have fallen into the lava and transformed yourself into re-usable energy. Anything but _you_ -

Bec had found you later with bloody palms marked by the crescent scars of dug-in fingernails, relentlessly working on taking apart everything after another. You'd shot at him with your rifle. You'd missed by a mile at that point. He took you aside into the cold drifts outside Rose’s house. He liked doing that. Teleporting you just within reach of your friends, but never letting you near them.

You’d collapsed in the snow and cried, curling up in his fur.

After calming down he’d taken you to do one of your favorite things: teleported you in front of John’s house so that you could make the wheelie-dealie thingy on his mailbox go up. Then in a moment you flashed away again.

You had mandarin oranges covered with chocolate that night, your favorite snack. Bec had re-assembled everything as perfectly as new. You’d taken your grandfather’s body down to the refrigerator in the kitchen.

The next day you would dig out the bullet from his heart and would set to sewing and stuffing him. But that night you put on the cheesiest, most nostalgic cartoons on and cuddled with your Squiddles. You were the only Harley left in the world. The burden swabbed your mouth dry.

You escaped to Prospit soon enough, drifting into blessed sleep. Waking amidst the golden minarets was something so much like _relief_.

The next day, though, you would set to work. You would not let him down, him or anyone. The family motto: Harleys never falter. There were still things worth fighting for.

\--

But soon enough, you can’t polish everything, you can’t set it all in bronze.

You spend your days trying to keep everything clean and the musk off the ceilings and walls. You felt oddly a bit like Cinderella. She was an orphan too, except maybe she wasn’t the sole owner of an island at the age of four.

You fall off ladders while dusting pictures, hurt yourself and learn how to repair yourself without anesthetic. You had to learn how to stitch yourself together again with only YouTube videos and eHow. Your lips white, the blood seeping in between folds of fat and nerve: you counted to ten before screaming.

(my diamond girl)

Food was easy, at least; you realized a little too late why he’d bought you so many seeds. Fruits grow into existence. Your refrigerator never runs out of steak-Bec likes to pick them up from around the world. You keep the fridge well stocked with everything else. The cookalyzer's simple.

Water was more difficult, but you managed to build a water filtration machine behind the kitchen. It didn’t take you that long. You were six when it was done and you rejoiced; it was so much easier than carrying pot after pot of water and boiling it over the cookalyzer.

Sure, maybe you’ll never be able to get pop or chips easily, but you survive. You’re alive and that’s enough.

Besides, if you ever get the craving, you always order online. (Your granddad left his plans behind, in checks and credit cards and financial statements. Money is weird, but you figure it out. Crates of chocolate come by every month, dropped in by helicopter like an army ration drop. It’s the only luxury you allow yourself.)

(You never signal to them that you’re alone.)

\--

GT: hey could you show me a picture of your granddad, jade?  
GT: he sounds really cool!  
GT: i wish my dad was that cool  
GT: he’s just a clown busking on the streets to make money  
GG: er  
GG: i dont know john  
GG: that…doesnt sound very plausible  
GT: he's obsessed with clowns  
GT: he plasters our house with harlequins  
GT: if there's anyone who could make a living out of it it is him  
GT: and  
GT: wait  
GT: you’re avoiding the question!  
GG: prepare to eat your words!!!  
GG: here he is  
GG has sent a file: mygranddad.png  
GT: he looks younger than I thought he would  
GT: isn’t he like, 100?  
GG: >:( john!!!  
GG: my granddad could pick you up and juggle you and dave while also hosting a tea party  
GT: ok ok jeez  
GG: jeeeez  
GT: jeeeeeeeeeeez!  
GG: JEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZ!!!!!  
GT: ok stop this is dumb  
GG: :B hehe  
GT: ur FACE is dumb  
GG: ur face is  
GG: no fair  
GT: haha see i have spooky powers too! dave and rose are always going on about you having them  
GT: maybe we’re related haha  
GG: oh….  
GG: hmm john that is an interesting conclusion to draw!  
GT: haha, what?  
GG: oh look  
GG: there’s a basketball game on  
GG: its the heat versus the bulls  
GT: i follow the nba too  
GT: that game was 11 days ago!  
GG: im watching a replay  
GG: 130-127 dwyane wade saved miami from looking like suckers  
GT: wait but you were kinda acting a bit weird just now  
GT: are you okay, jade?  
GG: john dont you have math homework  
GT: yeah  
GG: hop to then!  
GT: wait  
GT: i don’t remember mentioning that though…  
GG: oh wow look at the time  
GG: bye john!!! <3 <3 <3

\--

You live a triple life. One where your friends think your family is alive, one in a tower you constantly have to fix, and another in a gilded paradise where the chess pieces are the closest to family you’ll ever have. A body for each. Regular Jade, robot Jade, dreamer Jade.

When the Queen finds you thumbing the off-cream lace of your gold dress, you ask her, “Why me?”

It’s a strange faraway voice.

“Why do I have to be the one to have these visions?”

The Queen leans down in all her towering magnitude, the crown heavy on her head and whispers something in your ear.

The white citizens teach you about the long game. About patience. Diligence. Waiting. They’ve waited a decade for you. 

Their single-mindedness is something you aspire to, the way they prepare for the War without regard for anything else.  

The Queen becomes, in a way, your surrogate mother as you fall deeper and deeper into your narcolepsy. She teaches you about building-how a city holds itself together; the structure of towers.

She tells you the planet is yours to roam. You streak the gold streets with your shadow.

Every night you visit John-your sleeping brother, your best friend. He sleepscrawls horrible addendums to his existence on his walls. The first time you ever saw them you'd nearly cried. You'd taken your crayons to them and scribbled every nice thing you could imagine. 

He sleeps. You try shaking him awake. You scream. You play the bass. You leave the door purposely ajar when you leave in hopes he'll put a bucket on top. 

Nothing.

The bakers teach you how to make the perfect soufflé. The warriors teach you how to stand and shoot while compensating for weight, and the Queen strokes your hair as she settles you back in bed and whispers, _Princess, you are brave. You will save us all. And one day, you will wake him._

(Or die trying.)

\--

You built a treehouse once. There’s something about it, you think, nailing boards down and scribbling on old Prussian blue paper.

If you think of shining spires on another world when it’s finished, you don’t let on.

\--

You swim. By God, do you swim-if you’re not cleaning or cooking or tearing turbine machines apart or shooting at birds in the sky or staining your fingers black with newsprint ink reading yourself ragged about geothermal generators. You're self-sustainable now. The tower runs like a smooth oil slick down a cheek. But the marks of your worry show themselves in the rainbow of colored bands around your fingers-the fingers propelling you forward now. 

You do laps. You’d make Granddad proud, you think, with how well your guns are coming along. He taught you how to swim when you were three. You like the frog stroke the best.

You track the tide by the moon and the sun rising. 

Early morning, just around dawn. The breeze is bracing. The water is cool and faintly tinged orange around the horizon; you swim out as far you can and bob up and down gently.

Water makes you feel like you’re not a bundle of cells and neurons. You want to deliquesce into the salt-water ocean, formless, boundless.

Reality hits you like a pistol-whipping. You need to check on the water filtering system before daybreak. Getting to it before the machine jams is a priority because you’re running out of mechanical parts, even with your granddad’s giant collection. You do not falter.

\--

You learn how to conserve energy; always always always- you never turn on the lights until it’s past dusk. There’s something strange and dreamy about moving around in a dimly lit tower, barely able to see anything except in blurred shadows. Peeling oranges down in the kitchen becomes weird after sunset. You register the slow gradient of fiery orange slide into peach and then lilac, then a slanted midnight blue barely peeking in through the windows…

One day you nearly slice your fingers off and after that you light candles. You don’t know why you’re so afraid that one day the volcano will simply stop supplying you with power. You think it is probably wishful thinking!

You look more and more like the stuffed girl in Granddad's parlor everyday. What does it matter about a few light bulbs burning? 

You’re young and you like to watch fires flicker, so you do it anyway. The candlelight defines the darkness instead of repelling it and you make your fingers dance across walls in shadowy figures and shapes.

\--

TT: So.  
GG: well hey there rose  
GG: whats up??  
TT: The elevation of things isn’t what concerns me today.  
GG: oooooookaaayyyyyyyyyy……  
TT: Your attempts to elude me with your excessive ellipses have been noted.  
GG: hmm  
GG: something tells me you want to ask me something  
GG: but you want me to ask it so you dont offend me!  
TT: An astute observation.  
TT: You have always been rather supernatural in your ability for stunningly accurate inferences.  
GG: haha well i cant read your mind though!  
GG: what did you want to ask?  
TT: Well.  
TT: I understand if it is a delicate subject, one which you do not wish to discuss, but rather continue to evade as if a deer escaping from a car’s headlights.  
TT: Not to say that you are a coward for doing so, of course.  
TT: Well, it seems my rapacity for answers has left me thoroughly satisfied, because of how deeply I’ve stuck my foot into my mouth.  
TT: Mock me if you will.  
GG: well my dad has been dead a long time rose  
GG: my granddad never told me how  
GG: its ok if you were curious  
GG: i do remember my mom though  
GG: um  
GG: she was always really elegant and she liked walks  
GG: she always had a cool air about her and a great sense of duty  
GG: and she taught me about architecture  
TT: That seems rather eclectic for a child to learn.  
TT: But then again I have been given lessons on the best temperature for a vodka martini glass before serving, so this is probably a case of the raven calling the crow black.  
GG: she was super pretty and she  
GG: kind of always had an armor up  
GG: figuratively  
GG: (hehe)  
TT: Interesting.  
TT: I can relate, I suppose.  
TT: My mother likes to hide whatever smarts she may have once possessed behind an alcohol-laden haze of bad typos and hasty expensive gifts in an attempt to provoke me.  
TT: But I will admit I at least have her still.  
TT: I’m sorry, Jade.  
TT: At least you still have your grandfather.  
TT: I can’t imagine how it must have been to have lost that much of your family.  
GG:  
GG: yeah  
GG: at least i still have him

\--

You think to yourself that he knew, somewhere along the line. In between reading instructions on how to do laundry and teaching yourself how to read and write under the covers by torchlight, you think that he always knew. Prognostication runs in the family. Why else all this? Every sheet of paper, waiting for you like a goshdarn pilgrim’s reward?

 

\--

 

Some days you get vicious with the girl in the mirror the girl who sometimes you don't believe is really  _you_. 

Roiling, thunderous magma

slow and simmering

an impurity

in the ashsmokefire

_stranger_.

You get vicious when she gets soft and sad, wondering  _why don’t they see? Why don’t they ask? If they loved me enough they would ask if he loved me he wouldn't have gone or_  and she launches the attacks: you are not sad, or angry or bitter or resentful or needful you are strong and you are no  _child_ , you don’t need to be protected or cuddled or loved, you are so much stronger than that. You have survived things that would break tyrants royalty ruthless cities. You have rebuilt yourself up from ash. You are not weak. So stop acting like it, Harley. A human race to save and a game to play and maybe part of you will die but this is how things are supposed to be.  _Deal._

\--

TG: well harley  
TG: i hope you are having a goddamn fun time on hellmurder island with mr moneybags  
TG: happily fucking bereft of puppet prostate  
TG: meanwhile i am entrenched in pert schnozzles  
TG: miserably embedded in plush penis  
TG: foam schlongs the size of a muddy volcano in las vegas being served to a pimp  
GG: ewwwww  
GG: dave i dont need to know what you do in your spare time!!!  
GG: your brothers obsession is bad enough  
TG: im asking for some goddamn empathy here harley  
TG: i am being subjected to a catastrophic downward spiral that consists of jolly puppet anus slowly tearing my psyche apart to its core  
TG: if I have to subject myself to the truly fucknasty view of yet another rotund animate butt  
TG: i will do some kind of  
TG: fucking gymnastics off the handle  
GG: and probably break an ankle while youre at it!!  
GG: hmm rose is telling me that i should indulge you  
GG: she says i should encourage your involvement in your brother’s hobby  
GG: this sounds like a good idea  
TG: oh good god no  
TG: hell no  
GG: oh hell yes if this is what helps you discover your sexuality i am all for it dave  
GG: we are all behind you in this  
GG: oh wait john says he isnt behind you on this one  
GG: because that sounds like a homosexual come-on  
GG: never mind he means he gives his support even if it is tinged with disgust  
GG: rose says if it is the upturned puppet dong that turns your crank  
GG: to go right ahead, we support you in your foam-fueled wank  
GG: that sounds gross but if its to encourage you i will tolerate it :D  
TG: i hate you all  
GG: <3  
TG: harley you are so fucking lucky you dont have a brother  
GG: well technically  
GG: yeah uh totally  
TG: im telling you if i had a sister i wouldnt have to wade through seven tons of weird pornographic bullshit  
GG: somehow i doubt that  
TG: what  
GG: and i wouldnt be so quick to dismiss your brother dave  
GG: hes your family  
GG: if i had a brother  
GG: i would be happy to have him  
GG: anyway  
GG: :o you should probably look out!!  
TG: wait what  
TG: what do you mea  
TG: akdjfalkfjalfkj  
TG: PUPPETS  
TG: AWESOME  
TG: THATS REALLY ALL THERE IS TO SAY ON THE MATTER

\--

“Do you know how they make diamonds?”

“Oh! Oh! How?”

He made you a fine diamond, indeed.

Set you in a volcano, isolated you in the necessary conditions, compressed you into something hard and unbreakable.

Dave may think he has it hard, but it’s easier being pushed than _melting_ , just to fit into a mold.

\--

It’s Friday. Friday is one of your favorite days. Friday is Skype night for all four of you, regardless of exams, parental disapproval, housekeeping or canine sleeping hours.

Dave shares one of his new mixes with all of you. He’s the one who coordinates the simultaneous playing. The timing has to be exact.

“Okay, I’m ready!” John says.

“Me too.” Rose calls out.

“Me three!”

Dave nods imperceptibly and says, “Alright, players 1-4, press play _now_.”

It’s a godalmighty mess of a mix and it’s wonderful. There’s [Dexy’s Midnight Runners](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc-P8oDuS0Q), [Kanye West](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yJuXCiiBSs) and a bit of Madeon’s [Pop Culture](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxPbgnO81sQ) and [The City](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqUBmeFn7qM).

It’s at that point that, hearing it blasting over the speakers, you and John have the same idea at once.

“Dance party!”

For once Rose is caught entirely off-kilter. Dave groans in the background.

“Guys, no-”

Their eloquent protestations are paid no heed. You two have been caught with the notorious jitterbug. There is nothing for it but to shake the tail, as Granddad would say.

“Dudes, I am begging you to cease and desist-”

John and you are too busy burning the carpet. At some point he attempts a Charleston.

Rose looks at her webcam, shrugs, gets up and begins to get _down_. You and John whoop.

“Et tu, Lalonde? This is not even remotely ironic.”

“Dork.” Rose replies, smirking.

He gets up from his chair in slow motion-melodramatic nerd-and he begins to shred as no one has ever shredded before. You roll your eyes. He’s wanted to join in since the start, coolkid.

The whole scene has to look ridiculous to anyone else. A kid dancing in front of their laptop, breathless and eyes shining and moving as only awkward thirteen year olds can. Miraculously, no adult comes barging in through on anybody’s end. It’s just the four of you and the music.

When the mix finally ends you’re all panting and laughing from having danced in your rooms alone; but together. Bec is looking at you weird and it’s Saturday now, but you’re so happy you could burst.

In that moment you want to tell them everything. Your ribs warm, your arteries pumping under slabs of fat and skin.

You don’t.

\--

On your 13th birthday you buy a stereo, with sonorous bass speakers. You've been drilling Dave about the best build for weeks. You haul all of it on top of the ball-roof. You sit on the peak and wait for the sunrise to come. When the fiery orange tip of it hits the horizon you press play. The few, heart-aching strains of [a song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE27VH-BeiU) begin to play, loud enough for you to hear it clearly over the wind that’s whipping around your ears and blowing your hair into big black wisps. From a side view you've got your chin curled up on the crown of your knees, watching the water turn into fire. If one saw wetness on your cheeks, they would not be delusional.

For a moment you think it wasn’t supposed to be like this. It’s quiet, the world is slowly coming to life around you and you allow yourself the tiniest moment to just-

ache, a second, for the girl you could have been.

Two parents, and a grandfather who never left his guns lying around. A brother. A house in the suburbs. Dreams unpainted in gold. Rose and Dave a hasty, ill-advised road trip away-stealing Dad's car keys sneaking out with your brother in the middle of the night laughing snickering confident in your teenage immortality-

You don’t regret your life. You don’t. You could have died a million times before this without Bec saving you from drowning as a child or Granddad teaching you how to shoot or the White Queen-

But you could have been happy. Normal.

Grandddad reproaches you when you enter the living room. _Nonsense_ , he says. _Harleys never falter._

\--

Oh, but _look_ at you! Mad, surrounded by miles of fauna and sea. Look at yourself. A bundle of neurons, flesh and meat; waiting to be swallowed up by the forest. Compressed into one lonely girl under pressure and heat.

Maybe your dreams and visions are all lies; spin to satisfy you before you decompose in a lonely tower. Look at you.

The only satisfaction you ever get from pings and webcam sightings, from people who have parents and lives and warmth that isn’t stinging tropical sunlight. Look at you, all alone, with only a dog to bite at your heels when you aren’t too busy fixing up your robot self. The only living people you’ve ever met are hard set in white carapace and too reverent to give you more than the occasional hand.

The internet is no solace, either. No matter how many pictures you stare at, they never blink.

But you don’t say a word, not to them-not to your friends. They can’t know, that would mess it all up-not to mention they can't understand. You love them and you would die for them, but this-like everything else-is something you have to handle yourself.

\--

TT: You hide under an armor of your own, too.  
GG: what?  
TT: We’ve been friends for over 5 years, now.  
TT: Yet you hardly talk about your own hardships to us.  
TT: This isn’t psychoanalysis, merely an observation.  
GG: i can take care of myself  
TT: Jade, I have never doubted that. You are one of the strongest people I’ve ever met.  
TT: To have gone through what you’ve gone through and still be so well-adjusted is not only admirable, but maddeningly intimidating, to be honest with you.  
TT: You’re a scientific genius, musical, a crack shot, clairvoyant…need I go on?  
GG: jeez rose  
GG: youre making me blush!!!  
GG: whats with the sudden flattery?  
TT: I’m buttering you up for the rights to document your inevitable, eventual breakdown, obviously.  
TT: The Harley Files will guarantee my college fund. My mother has undoubtedly wrung it dry of every booze-soaked dollar, anyway.  
GG: what could this be  
GG: i smell something  
GG: all these words  
GG: could it be  
GG: the scent of someone trying to change the subject???  
TT: No, but really, Jade.  
TT: What I’m attempting to say here is  
TT: Summoned from the very pits of my callous, hypocritical virago nature  
TT: Is this:  
TT: You don’t have to feel like you have to hide things from us.  
TT: Unless it’s a puppet dong obsession.  
TT: In which case.  
TT: Go right ahead.  
GG: pffhahahahahaha  
TT: I trust that was enough comedic whiplash?  
GG: yes it was  
GG: i cant stop laughing now, dangit rose!!  
TT: And so my purpose has been served.  
TT: Amidst your laughter, though, just know the statement still stands.  
GG: yeah  
GG: i know

\--

Now that you think about it, you could have met them any time you wanted. Every time you shot at Bec he’d take you through a series of locations; all of them were your friends’ houses. But you'd never gone near them.

Skaia, of course, urged you to never give in to temptation. But the desire was there, to just take a few steps, lean through their windows (like you were just next-door neighbors), reach out and brush your fingers against theirs-

Harleys never falter, but-

 

(my diamond girl)

 

( _Deal._ )

 

(die trying)

 

(I'm sorry, Jade.)

 

\--

The game starts. It’s not anything like you expected and the visions were supposed to _help_ and you-you literally talk with the face of your own death.

Even as shaken as you are by the sight of your emerald, shimmering sprite self completely broken, you don't give up.

You are Jade Harley. You have died once and lived to tell the tale. You have dealt with gods and monsters and aliens and men, you are not afraid of anything like pain. You were born in the pit of a volcano. You are a princess-a hero, and heroes don’t give up.

You are your grandfather’s diamond. And Harleys _never_ falter.

\--

JADE: i would like to think that even if i was sad and scared, if i was put in a position where everyone depended on me, i could put all those feelings aside and do whats right!  
JADESPRITE: but i dont know whats right  
JADE: yes you do!  
JADE: even though you dont want to be, youre here now, and there are still people who need you  
JADE: there is still something worth fighting for!

\--

It's always them you've fought for.

Before you turned thirteen and you’d known them for two years, you’d known then that you were different in more than name.

You are beautiful and you are broken; and you’ve had to learn how to do everything on your own.

Yet, when you see them for the first time after three years-

When all four of you are finally together, you cry for the first time since your grandfather died. You’ve been strong, you’ve fought hard, god- how you have tried to be unbreakable. But you’re not alone anymore and that seems to be what breaks you, just for a second. You can see them! It's not on your laptop! You can _touch_ them! They can see you too! They're real! You're real. 

You’re wiping away the tears as you hug them. You want to say something funny, but what comes out are just kind of tearful, happy sobs.

It’s a glorious mess of tangled arms and you all lose your balance and fall to the grass together.

You’re not on your own anymore, Jade. We’re here with you. We’re here.

were here

we’re here.

Maybe you’re not the same. Maybe you’re not an invincible diamond. You've been dreamer, phoenix/god, sharpshooter, killer, granddaughter, but not that. But that's fine, really-you're a girl who's loved, and that's all you've ever needed.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't think I've slaved over a fic this much since Ladystuck 2012! I really hope you like it. 
> 
> A big shout out to my betas, M, A and L-you know who you are, and you're fantastic. Especially M, whose input was valuable, and without this fic would not have as many pesterlogs. Also sports jade. Sports jade is the best. 
> 
> Also, wow, what an ambitious undertaking. I started this early and it developed into this monster of themes-Jade constantly morphs from a diamond to lava to a phoenix and all of those things connected besides. Interlacing those-and the concept of her as an isolated stranger and this girl-I tried conveying so many things here and I only hope I made them come across without it being all muddled together. I feel like I could have written about her forever. I really hope you enjoyed it.


End file.
